


Call Sign

by Skylark



Series: Dirkgineer/Jakeologist OTP [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Getting to Know Each Other, Happy Dirkjake, Long Distance Relationships, M/M, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 06:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, Jake isn't actually very good at most FPS games.  Give him a plastic gun at an arcade and he's unstoppable, but an Xbox controller has too many fiddly sticks and buttons, none of them analogous enough to a real gun to suit his tastes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call Sign

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta [Ketsu](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/ketsu)! 
> 
> My giftstuck recipient said they'd be okay with anything, so I wrote what I write best. Happy new year to you!

When Jake tells the story, they first met on a stormy midsummer evening—the kind where you leave all the windows open, hoping for a stray breeze to break the stillness. Later that night the clouds broke open and the rain poured down all at once, and Jake ran outside shoeless to revel in the fury of it. “A tempestuous evening for a tempestuous romance!” he tells you.

But when Dirk tells it, they met on Xbox Live.

They're playing Halo, of course. What games could they agree on besides first-person shooters? Jake loves puzzle games but Dirk finds them tedious, and Dirk loves rhythm games but Jake doesn't have the ear for them. But Halo, now there's a game for the ages, Dirk says, and Jake claps an agreeing hand on his shoulder, the irony lost on him.

The thing is, Jake isn't actually very good at most FPS games. Give him a plastic gun at an arcade and he's unstoppable, but an Xbox controller has too many fiddly sticks and buttons, none of them analogous enough to a real gun to suit his tastes. So when the match begins—Dirk on the red team, Jake on the blue—Dirk's attention is immediately drawn by the player who keeps spinning in circles and shooting at the ceiling.

“Heavens to Betsy!” comes the cry over his speakers. “How do you aim this blasted thing? Roxy, help!”

Dirk watches for a moment, bemused, and then decides to put _GolgothasTerror1111_ out of his misery. His headshot is clean, and he can hear a woman's laughter faintly as the other player's character collapses. The stream of invective over his headphones is as vehement and inventive as it is antiquated.

Dirk doesn't say anything; he never says anything on XBox Live—he gains more enjoyment from letting his skills speak for themselves.

The rest of the blue team is almost good enough to make up for how useless GolgothasTerror1111 is, so Dirk isn't able to spend the whole time watching the obviously new player. But to his surprise, the other guy learns astonishingly quickly.

“Did you see that, Rox!” he cries. “Why, I caught that fellow clear from across the way! Now we're cooking with gas!”

“You know they can hear you, right?” says the other voice—probably his girlfriend, Dirk thinks.

“Really? Well bust my buttons. There's one in your eye, isn't it, sir or madam xxMadMaxxx24?” he says, saying each extraneous “x” with gleeful emphasis. “Why don't you stick that in your pipe and smoke it, eh!”

By this point Dirk has located him standing at the top of a tower and kills him again, just to be contrary. Immediately the other player's victory crows change to oaths, and Dirk can't help it—he laughs.

“Ah, the assassin speaks!” GolgothasTerror1111 shouts. It's a bit loud—Dirk has to turn the sound down. “That's the second time you've nailed me, isn't it, Timaeus?” (“If you know what he means,” the woman snickers faintly.) “You've got my dander up now! If it's a fight you want, then it's a fight you'll get. Watch your—how does that go again?”

“Watch your six,” Roxy supplies.

“That's right! Watch your _six,_ Mister TimaeusTestified!”

Dirk leans forward over his controller, grinning. “You're on,” he drawls.

The red team wins eventually, but not by the landslide that Dirk's used to—perhaps because he spent most of his time chasing the new player around and killing him.

“Good show, ladies and gents!” the same player says warmly as the match's results are displayed. “A pleasure to play with you all!”

Dirk shakes his head, bemused, and—on a whim—sends a friend request. It's accepted instantly, somewhat to his surprise.

 

(“Why'd you add all the numbers to the end of your name?” Dirk asks him, later. “It's not like your username would have been taken—it's pretty unique.”

“Adding numbers seemed to be in vogue!” he replies. “I wanted to prove that I was hip to your gamer lingo. Why, I blended right in, didn't I?”

Dirk's long-suffering sigh can't hide the smile that stubbornly tugs at the corner of his mouth.)

\--

The summer that they first meet, Dirk's just finished his Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering in four years instead of the projected five. Even for someone with a brain as overclocked as his is, he's a bit burned out from the experience, so he spends the majority of the summer taking it easy, at least by his standards. He lies on the floor of his apartment, sending out job applications, fiddling with DJ software and small software projects, and chatting with the Halo player whose name, he soon learns, is Jake.

Jake is currently in England having just finished his Bachelor's in archeology, though he previously hails from what is apparently every country in southeast Asia. He's looking to study in the US for his Master's, and Dirk can't help himself from asking, “Any schools in Texas?”

“That's where your fine southern drawl comes from, doesn't it?” Jake asks with delight. “Are you a Texas man?”

“It's a Texan accent, not a southern one. You might want to brush up on your geography before you come to the states,” Dirk says, rolling onto his back and intentionally thickening his accent. “But yeah, you're speaking with the genuine article. A bona fide born-and-raised Texan. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He mimes tipping a ten gallon hat, even though Jake can't see him, and smiles a little at Jake's peal of laughter.

\--

About two months in, Dirk realizes that this is the fifth day in a row that he's signed onto skype at 3:45PM, because Jake signs on between four and four-thirty. He knows that Jake spends most of his day working with his professors, but spends a few hours at a pet shelter in the afternoons, and for the first half-hour the conversation will mostly be dominated by stories of his favorite dogs. He also knows that Jake is allergic to peanuts, delightedly watches movies that Dirk finds increasingly awful and yet more appealing once he knows that Jake favors them. Jake keeps his attention like no one else has in years, and the photos he's sent Dirk are all blurry because he can't keep still, and when he talks about seeing the world Dirk is jealous—not because Dirk has any desire to become a globe-trotting Indiana Jones knockoff like some people, but because all those people will get to meet him in person and Dirk is stuck in Houston.

 _I like him,_ Dirk realizes with a distant sort of horror, and buries his face in his hands. _I like him and he's not even on the same continent and I'm going to ruin everything._

“Play it cool,” he mutters, running his hands through his hair. “Play it cool.”

\--

“The University of Texas at Austin isn't far from you, is it?” Jake asks.

“About two and a half hours,” Dirk says slowly, setting down his glass of sweet tea. “Why?”

“They just accepted me into their program for next year,” Jake says. “I think I may just take them up on it!”

After a moment of silence, Jake says, “Dirk? Are you quite all right?”

“Y-yeah,” he manages. “That'd be really awesome, bro. Maybe we could hang out sometime. ...What does your girlfriend think about it, though? Is she coming, too?”

“I beg your pardon?” Jake repeats, bewildered.

“Roxy?” Dirk tries again.

“Oh! No, no, she's not my—gee whiz,” Jake says, and now _he's_ flustered. “Roxy's a good egg, the best friend a man could ask for, but she's not—our familes go way back, you know. We've been friends since we were babies! Roxy's courting offers from Columbia and Northwestern, herself. Did you know that Texas has a great deal of archaeological sites?” Jake says, his attention already wandering.

“Yeah,” Dirk says, “I know. Actually, I was looking at some jobs in Austin myself.”

“Really?” Jake says. “Maybe we'd end up in the same town! Gosh, wouldn't that be fine.”

Dirk manages to keep his expression to a small smile. “I think I can make that happen.”


End file.
